


there's a reason not to want this (but I forgot)

by knight_tracer, lady_ragnell



Category: Jessica Jones (TV)
Genre: Audio Format: M4B, Audio Format: MP3, Audio Format: Streaming, F/F, Podfic, Podfic Length: 0-10 Minutes, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-23
Updated: 2018-02-23
Packaged: 2019-03-15 01:46:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13602993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/knight_tracer/pseuds/knight_tracer, https://archiveofourown.org/users/lady_ragnell/pseuds/lady_ragnell
Summary: Trish visits Jessica and ends up playing a game that has interesting results.





	there's a reason not to want this (but I forgot)

**Author's Note:**

> Written and recorded for the [Awesome Ladies Podfic Anthology](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/AwesomeLadiesPodficAnthologyVIII) project. Give the other stories a listen if you like this one!
> 
> **Warnings:** references to canonical abuse, both Killgrave and Trish's mother
> 
> Title from "Recessional" by Vienna Teng.

Podfic Length: 8:15  
Download Links: [mp3](http://knight-tracer.parakaproductions.com/Podfic/%5bJessica%20Jones%5d%20there's%20a%20reason%20not%20to%20want%20this%20\(but%20I%20forgot\).mp3) | [m4b](http://knight-tracer.parakaproductions.com/Podfic/%5bJessica%20Jones%5d%20there's%20a%20reason%20not%20to%20want%20this%20\(but%20I%20forgot\).m4b)

  


Trish almost has a heart attack when she walks through Jessica's front door and finds Jessica squinting at her reflection in a darkened window, putting on lipstick, wearing a dress that Trish is pretty sure she lost three years ago and a pair of heels. Her first reaction is terror that this has something to do with Killgrave, but then Jessica looks over her shoulder at Trish and rolls her eyes. “Don't give me that look, I need information from a guy in a bar and I'm not going to get paid if I punch it out of him.”

“So you're going to talk it out of him?” Trish tries not to sound as dubious as she feels, but Jessica turns around, arms crossed, so she fails. May as well just say it. “You're not very good at that.”

“Bullshit.” Jessica frowns. “I'm great at convincing people I'm someone else.”

“Yeah, on the phone for thirty seconds, or in person for two minutes with a costume to make people look past you, or being a parody of someone.” Trish sighs. “You're trying to get information out of a guy by pretending to pick him up, right? You're not good at pretending to be interested in people who bore you for long periods of time.”

“Fuck you, I can do it.”

“For the whole night, enough that he spills whatever you want him to spill?” Trish raises her eyebrows.

Jessica snorts. “Which one of us is the PI here?”

“Which one of us is the actress?”

“You didn't learn this shit acting, you could do acting because you already knew it,” says Jessica, who can always cut through Trish's defenses with no trouble and only means to hurt her by doing it half the time. Trish has no idea which half this is. From the way her face softens, maybe she didn't mean it this time. “Fine. Show me.”

That's surprising. “What do you mean?”

“You think you're better than I am at this shit? Show me how to do it, then. Give me an example.”

“I wouldn't get information out of you the same way I'd get information out of some guy in a bar,” Trish points out. “That's the problem. If you want to get information from someone, you have to be something specific for them. You just want to flirt and ask him to buy you a drink and hope he falls into your lap.”

Jessica's chin goes up. “So show me. I can extrapolate.”

It's a stupid challenge, and a stupid idea, but Trish has never backed down from one of those where Jessica is concerned. _What do I want to know?_ she wonders, even as she says “You know I'm looking for information, though. Unfair advantage.”

“Fine. How would you do it if you were just walking through the door right now and we never had this conversation?”

“Still an unfair advantage,” Trish points out, but she still backs up a pace or two to the door, dramatically mimes coming in just to get a twitch of a smile out of Jessica. “Oh hey, Jess, are you going out on a job tonight?”

Jessica gives her a cutting look. “No, I'm dressed like this for my health.”

“Anything you can tell me about?”

“Just asking me because I tell you sometimes is cheating.”

“I'm not trying to find that out, give me a few minutes. That's your problem, you're impatient. Don't worry about what my long game is, he won't be. Just answer a question that I would have asked you anyway.”

“Really stupid case, kid right out of college suddenly came into money, splashing it around doing stupid shit, and his parents are worried.” Jessica shudders. “They're from Kentucky.”

“So you're trying to be the hot cosmopolitan older woman?”

“Fuck you, I'm not that old.”

“No, I'm just saying you have to know who you're trying to be to him before you try this. So this is less pretending to be interested in him and more making him want to impress you. That you're good at.”

“So does that mean this lesson is over?”

Trish wanders around the office to buy a minute. Malcolm must have been in today, because some of the papers are in order and all the empties have been cleared off the obvious places. “Your lipstick is the wrong shade for it.”

When she looks over her shoulder, Jessica is staring at her. “He's a guy, he won't care.”

“No, you need something darker. Come on, let me see what I can do.” Jessica's makeup case runs mostly to foundation that will cover bruises enough that she looks kind of respectable, but she keeps enough of a supply left over from the days when she kept trying out various office jobs that Trish unearths something in the right shade and gestures Jessica to sit in her desk chair.

“I can put on my own makeup, what are you, my mom?”

“You have zero non-broken mirrors in this apartment and your window is not an acceptable substitute. Hold still.” Trish raises her eyebrows and keeps them raised until Jessica sits down with a huff, and waits another few seconds for her to stop fidgeting. “Just like it used to be, right?”

“Maybe a little bit better than that.”

Trish takes Jessica's chin in her hand to hold her still, uses a wipe on the first color of lipstick until Jessica makes a face at her and then traces the new color on slowly, as careful as she can manage to be. Halfway through, Jessica breathes out in a shiver, sitting so still she may as well be a statue and watching Trish way more openly than she usually does. _Yeah,_ thinks Trish, keeping her hand steady, _that's what I wanted to know._ “There you go,” she finally says, releasing Jessica and stepping back a little. “What do you think he's mixed up in? Normally you wouldn't take this kind of job.”

“I would if they paid me enough.” Jessica shrugs, unfreezing a little, and opens the camera on her phone to inspect her face. “Whatever, it's the same color.”

“No, it's not.” Trish caps it up and puts it back where she found it. “This one will actually make him want to impress you, it makes you look richer.”

“How do you even know all this shit?”

Trish shrugs, because they both know that it's her mother and show business and everywhere those things intersect. “The trick is to let him come to you and then pretend he's someone you want to talk to and do everything but ask the question you want to ask.”

“And is that what you did?”

“I don't know, is it?” She sighs and pushes off the wall. “I've got to go, I was just stopping by on my way through. Try not to get shot or blown up or anything working this case, okay? Call me sometime, let me know you're alive.”

“Fuck you.”

“Bye, Jess.”

Jessica lets her get almost all the way to the door before she answers. “Hey. Did you find out what you wanted to know?”

Trish thinks about Jessica sitting still, letting Trish help her, looking at her like she hasn't looked since Killgrave. There's a long way to go, but maybe not as long as there was a few months ago. “Of course I did,” she says.

“You ever planning to tell me what the hell you wanted to know?”

“Not tonight. Maybe sometime.”

“Then how am I supposed to know you're not making it up?”

“I don't know. Try trusting me.” Trish opens the door. “Stay safe. I mean it.”

“Yeah, yeah,” says Jessica, but there's something close to soft in her tone. “I still think you didn't learn shit and my way is what's gonna get this guy.”

“I guess we'll just have to see,” says Trish, and lets herself out. Behind her, Jessica swears and tosses something at the door, not hard enough to shatter the glass, but it still sounds like she's smiling.

It's a win. Trish will take it.


End file.
